Gertrude M. Cox

Honored by Barbara Davidson Wendell

Gertrude Cox was a friend and mentor to many people at ISU. She was an important facet in establishing the Statistical Dept. at Iowa State College. In the early 1940's she was called to the new "Triangle" of North Carolina University and established the Statistical Department there.

An absolutely charming person her mother and sister, Edith, made and sold potato chips from their kitchen in Ames to meet education fees.

I first met her as my Sunday School teacher in a high school class. When I graduated from high school she called me to her office in the Old English Building on campus. She introduced me to comptometers and calculators - hence I earned my matriculation fees to graduate in 1943.

Gertrude was a great person of professional stature. From "the Triangle" she engulfed the world in the field of statistics. 7/1/96

Honored by the Statistics Department

B. 1900 d. 1978

Gertrude Cox was born in Dayton, Iowa and completed her undergraduate work in mathematics at Iowa State in 1929. In 1931, she received the first M.S. degree in mathematical statistics given at Iowa State (through the Department of Mathematics under George W. Snedecor). After studies at the University of California, she returned to Iowa State in 1933 and completed all course work for a Ph.D. in statistics. At the same time she worked in the Statistical Laboratory becoming a research assistant professor in 1939. In November 1940 she joined North Carolina State College as professor of experimental statistics, becoming the first head of the new Department of Experimental Statistics the following January. In 1944 she also became the first director of the Institute of Statistics North Carolina State College and a year later director of the Institute of Statistics for the Consolidated University of North Carolina. She received an honorary D.Sc. degree at Iowa State College in 1958. In 1959 she became head of the Statistics Research Division of the Research Triangle Institute, Durham, North Carolina and director Institute of Statistics Consolidated, University of North Carolina. Gertrude Cox was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (president 1956), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Honorary Life Member of the Biometrics Society, (president 1968-69) editor of Biometrics 1945-55 beginning with its first issues as Biometrics Bulletin, and co-author of Experimental Designs by William G. Cochran and Gertrude Cox.

7/1/96

Paver Inscription:

"Statistics Dept & Lab
Lenore Bancroft
Helen J. Bozivich
Donna Ruhl Brogan
Mary A. Clem
Gertrude Mary Cox
Vera David
Kathleen D. Shelley
Shashikala Sukhatme"